The Führer’s Wine Glass

I love wine . . . and I love history. And I especially love it when they get all tangled up together. I just finished inhaling this book:

LOVED it! It reads like a Tom Clancy novel . . . only wine is the hero. Sorry Jack Ryan, if I have to choose between you and wine . . .

When the Germans stormed into France in 1940, they weren’t just coming to occupy. They were coming to plunder . . . all the greatest French wines — Champagne, Bordeaux and Burgundy. Ah, but the French are a cunning people. They conceived ways to deceive their German occupiers. The French walled up entire wine cellars with bricks, buried their wines under gardens, and even sunk their wine in ponds. In the compulsory shipments of wine bound for Germany, the French resistance did everything from putting “good” labels on “bad” wines, to diluting wines, or loading full wine barrels onto Germany-bound trains, and then siphoning the contents so the barrels would arrive empty. Talk about a risky business! But the French were as smart as they were devious. They didn’t mess with the wines bound for the Third Reich’s top leadership — because apparently, those guys were wine snobs.

This launched me down a rabbit hole of research about the Third Reich’s drinking habits. I poured myself a glass of wine and did a little Googling . . .

The Führer himself wasn’t much of a drinker. Only occasional sips of wine and beer. Apparently, Hitler’s crazy was fueled by cake. But his staff . . . they could put away some good wine. Joseph Goebbels preferred Burgundy, while Hermann Göring fancied Bordeaux, particularly Chateau Lâfite Rothschild (and also cake). And Joachim von Ribbentrop loved Champagne.

While Googling all of this, I came across a photo of Herr Führer’s wineglasses. They sold at auction a couple of years ago for nearly $13,000. Yes, three zeros. So . . . after you shell out $13,000 for the Führer’s wine glasses (assuming you have one hell of a certificate of authenticity), what do you do with them? Do you drink out of them? I don’t think I could drink out of them . . . evil dictator germs don’t just wash off, you know. The creepiness factor hovers at about 10. So what does that leave? Throw them in the china cabinet next to grandma’s Wedgewood?

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11 comments

Absolutely, positively no…I wouldn’t even drink out of a Solo cup that *might* have been in the general geographic area of der Fuhrer…but this is absolutely fascinating stuff…I saw this book and thought immediately about you….so glad it was as good as it promised.

Very interesting post.
Regarding AH’s glasses, quite honestly, even regardless of the obvious historical connotations, they look like anything but proper wine tasting glasses. No surprise there I guess as, like you said, he was not a wine connoisseur. Could they have been gifted to him by the French as a prank?… Maybe the answer is going to be revealed in Wine & War II: The Sequel 😉

So true, Stefano! The shape is all wrong for any kind of proper wine. And the metal band around the top . . . every time I’ve had a glass with one of those, the wine ends up tasting like aluminum. French prank . . . LOVE it!!